


Good Times, Bad Times...Pandemic Times

by BrightWingsAndBroomsticks



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Neighbors, COVID, Childhood Memories, F/M, M/M, Mentions of Past Domestic Problems, Neighborly Dean, Pining, Suburban Intrigue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:35:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27660770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrightWingsAndBroomsticks/pseuds/BrightWingsAndBroomsticks
Summary: Castiel is back in his home town, now that the Covid-19 pandemic has decimated all the "normal" in his life. It's fine, in the scheme of things - with the world in turmoil, he's just grateful his brother offered to let him move back in. But when the one person in the whole town he least wants to see turns out to live distressingly close, will he be able to escape 2020 with at least a shred of his dignity?And even if he does, will his heart survive intact?
Relationships: Ben Braeden & Dean Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester, Lisa Braeden/Dean Winchester
Comments: 5
Kudos: 40





	Good Times, Bad Times...Pandemic Times

When you slink back to your hometown, a grown man with a sudden and embarrassing amount of free time and no particular trajectory to speak of, sometimes there’s just that one person you absolutely do not want to run in to. That person you so vehemently don’t want to come across that you become a praying man in the hours of open road laid out between your old life and this new prospect of haunting your childhood home. That person who you are suddenly hoping moved far, far away, or evaporated off the face of the earth entirely, just so you don’t have to figure out how to face them in your current state. 

That happens to everyone, right? Or is Castiel alone in this?

Well, it certainly feels some days like he’s losing track of reality, as post-travel quarantine blends all time into a mushy soup, and a general malaise that may or may not have to do with the pandemic settles into Castiel’s bones like an ache. It’s autumn, and he’s jobless, occupying half of the house where he grew up like a discarded Bronte wife dressed in ancient ratty sweatpants, and he might just be fine with all of that as long as he doesn’t have any reason to cross paths with Dean. 

Lord. He sounds like a tween movie character, even in his own head, and it’s infuriating. But the fact of the matter is that parts of this hurt run high school deep, so perhaps he can be forgiven for regressing some, at least where Dean Winchester is concerned. Or perhaps that’s a bit too generous, and he should just blame the pandemic. That whole situation seems to obscure a variety of transgressions these days. 

In any case, however ridiculous, this is Castiel’s state of mind as he enters week two of newly-back-in-town quarantine, waking for the day around noon and stumbling to the front window of his half of the house. Gabriel has a day shift today – not that they can safely see each other in person these days anyway with Gabe’s job to worry about, despite living under the same general roof – so he is alone and unwatched. Well, apart from Bela, his small striped cat, who is staring up at him through her whiskers from the armchair. But she’s no more judgmental than she was back when he had a job and a home and a life, so at least there’s that. 

It’s a gorgeous day, unexpectedly warm for this time of year in this part of the country. He’s a coffee and a half deep as he gazes out at the neighborhood in the golden midday light. 

And there, on the lawn across the street, stands Doom. 

He’s pushing a lawn mower. 

Mother fucker, it’s Dean Winchester. 

The thing is, in his most embarrassing and annoying daydreams, this possibility had been floated by his traitorous subconscious. Because once upon a time, Dean spent a lot of time in that house right across the street. Not because he lived there, but because his girlfriend did. And he spent a remarkable amount of non-school time with said girlfriend, very likely without ever knowing that Castiel lived right across the street. 

They had been friends once, long before that. Or, well, not friends in the “let’s hang out one on one and do an activity together as such” sort of way, but in the “we are middle schoolers so we hang out in a group and this group includes both you and me” sort of way. They had engaged in group conversations and played group games and coexisted at group birthday parties and all that suburban junior high sort of stuff. And then Castiel’s family had moved away. 

When Castiel’s family had, inevitably, moved back, it was senior year of high school, and all those birthday parties were distant memories buried in the ash heap of adolescent drama. This time, Castiel was in a new crowd of the Teachers Pets sort, and Dean was elsewhere. The teenage world had spread out in Castiel’s absence, and they were now as distant as the sun and moon. 

Castiel was, definitively, the moon in this scenario. 

Dean, for his part, wasn’t some raging dick bag. He was just a dude. A bit of a jock, but with too much hint of an iffy home life to be called “clean cut”. He was in his own little world, complete with a couple close friends and a hot dance-team girlfriend, and in the vastness of their rather large high school population, he very easily might not have known that the same Cas Novak from 7th grade was back in the neighborhood at all. 

And dear god, he was beautiful. 

Even worse, he still is. 

As Dean mows the lawn across the way in the sparkling autumn light, Castiel absolutely goggles. This is, unmistakably, the same Dean Winchester who graduated alongside him, the same stunning person who had made newly-awakened-gay Castiel of 17 melt from within whenever he entered the cafeteria. But despite his spitting resemblance, this Dean was leagues more handsome at 30 than his teenage self had been. It was absolutely baffling. 

Castiel, true to form, is staring. He’s across the street, standing clear as day in the huge front window, staring at his high school crush. He needs to get it together. 

Dean looks up. 

Castiel retreats into the shadows. 

He forgot to open the window. 

He’ll open one at the back of the house. 

~~~

The thing is, Dean didn’t do anything harmful to Castiel. It’s not like they got reintroduced and Dean neglected to remember him, and he certainly didn’t administer a swirly or any other sort of 90s-movie bully activity. No one else in the world was aware that Castiel had any sort of feeling toward Dean Winchester, good or ill. No one knows now, either. Because high school was a different world entirely from this pandemic hellscape, and most human beings are not still thinking about ancient crushes 12 years later. 

Whatever. Castiel has way way way too much free time right now. And given that Dean was the first male person he was specifically and deliberately attracted to – less “I recognize this boy is hot and that pleases me”, more “wow this specific boy is so beautiful and impressive that I would like to launch into the sun” – it’s probably not entirely surprising that his thoughts are wandering back to the lawn across the street with alarming frequency over the next few days. 

More unfortunate than wandering thoughts, however, is the excessive paranoia they have ushered in with them. This was, as has been stated, the one person Castiel openly prayed would not see him slinking back home with the stub of his proverbial tail between his legs, and that has not changed. 

Castiel spends the two days after the lawn mower incident studiously avoiding the front of the house entirely. This is not overly difficult, given that he spends most of his time in his childhood bedroom, which is in the back of his half of the house. But when he does need to venture into the kitchen – the one space he and Gabriel are forced to alternate using – it’s possible Castiel makes an excessively dramatic dash from the stairs to the kitchen doorway in order to lessen the chances of being spotted from across the street. 

It’s very embarrassing. But Castiel posits that it would be more embarrassing if he were to be spotted. 

The logic isn’t strong, but logic flew out the window back in March when pro sports first closed down, and Castiel is going to milk that for as long as humanly possible. 

~~~

It does occur to Castiel, now and again, that the mad dashes to the kitchen make very little sense unless Dean spends his days and nights standing on the aforementioned lawn to stare into the neighbor’s house. 

This does not make him stop.

~~~

The thing is, there’s _implications_ about Dean living in that house. His high school sweetheart grew up there, so it stands to reason that she still does. Why else would Dean be there? Castiel himself is only in his childhood home now because Dad left it to Gabriel when he died, and Castiel doesn’t have a home of his own any more. It could so easily be that the Braedens died or moved to Florida and left the house to their daughter and her daughter’s…boyfriend? Fiancé? Husband? 

Castiel is not going to ask Gabe about the Braedens or their daughter and possible son-in-law. He’s unbelievably lucky that Gabe was already off at med school when Castiel graduated, and thus was not around to notice his little brother’s clear crush on the neighbor’s boyfriend. He is NOT going to give him a scent of that now. 

That said, his utter panic wears off slightly after a few days, and he ventures tentatively back to the front window in the afternoon for a glance. (In a ballcap and sunglasses, but no one needs to know that, do they?). 

No one is on the lawn. 

Lord, he should have expected that. People don’t just hang out on their front lawns all the time, Castiel, jesus. 

But when he checks again a few hours later, Dean is, in fact, on the front lawn in the dimming colors of the early evening light. And he is not alone. 

There’s a kid with him. 

Castiel bolts again, retreating to his room so he can curl up in a pitiful blanket ball and contemplate the fact that Dean Winchester is teaching a boy of about 10 how to throw a baseball. 

Fuck. 

~~~

Oddly, the next morning when Castiel comes down the stairs, he doesn’t sprint for the kitchen. He’s somehow calmer, as if the burning disappointment of realizing that Dean is apparently married to Lisa and a father to her child somehow alleviates Castiel’s own responsibility to be impressive should he be spotted through the window. 

That’s not to say he suddenly wants to have a long talk with the guy about how thoroughly his life has fallen apart in the last year – he still hopes not to run into him in any capacity that might involve speaking. But the stark reminder that Castiel not only won’t ever have Dean as a lover, but clearly _can’t_ seems to have calmed a little bit of his anxiety about the window. It’s something, at any rate. 

~~~

When Castiel has officially been inside the house for more than two weeks from the day he arrived, he decides to celebrate by not being inside any more. He’s not comfortable actually going anywhere, but being in suburbia rather than the city, he can just walk around now without seeing many people, right? Sounds right. And he needs some real fresh air, anyway. 

Gabe is sleeping off his overnight shift. The hospital is filling up again, and he’s trying not to let on how concerned and exhausted he is, but Castiel knows him too well to buy the charade. He tiptoes down the stairs, and leaves through the front door so as not to disturb his sleeping brother in the back bedroom. 

Half of him expects to open the door and see Dean on the lawn. He does not. Dean probably has significantly better things to be doing right now. Hell, he’s probably at work, given that it’s noon on a weekday. Right? Probably a weekday. Who even knows any more. 

Castiel walks for way longer than anticipated. It’s nice here. Quiet enough without being creepy. He’s got a soothing breeze blowing his hair into an even bigger mess, a podcast in his ear to help him zone out, and truly nowhere to be. After a while, Cas even takes off his face mask. Gabe had told him that he could, that the neighborhood had been operating under the rule that you could go mask-less outdoors as long as you crossed the street to make room for others. It was a quiet enough area that this wasn’t a hardship, and once Cas had confirmed that Gabe hadn’t been wrong (or lying) about this behavior, he opted to shed his mask as well. 

After about an hour out in the sunshine, he makes it back to the block where he now (again) lives. Having crossed the street to make space for a frazzled looking young woman walking a Golden Doodle puppy, he’s about to cross back into his own driveway when he hears a low voice calling out. 

“Hey, I know you!” 

Startled, he turns around. And there, in all his plaid flannel glory, is Dean fucking Winchester, hair gleaming in the sun, eyes crinkling around a pair of aviators, looking straight at Castiel and smiling. 

Cas just blinks, wondering if this is a particularly vibrant daydream. 

Mistaking Cas’s silence for judgement, apparently, Dean scrambles to pull a standard blue and white face mask out of the breast pocket of his flannel. He puts it on with a sheepish shrug to his shoulders, then speaks again. “Cas Novak, right? You, uh, grew up around here, yeah?”

Mystified, Castiel slowly begins to realize he should probably respond. “I…yes. Hello.”

“I’m Dean,” the man continues, giving a little awkward wave where a handshake would usually enter the scene. 

“Yes,” Castiel replies, “I remember.”

And wow, the face mask and mirrored glasses make it remarkably hard for Cas to make out what Dean’s face is doing. But it seems like maybe a smile? Possibly? “Oh, cool. I didn’t know you were back. Do you live around here?”

“My brother does,” Cas says, gesturing somewhat lamely at the house. “Here.”

“You’re kidding,” Dean replies, more surprised than disbelieving. “You staying with him? I noticed there was a new car in the driveway.” 

“Yes, that’s mine.” Lord, Cas wants to just sprint across the street and pretend this isn’t happening. But he does have _some_ manners left, so first he adds, “It’s good to see you again, Dean.” Then he turns more fully toward his house, and gives a little wave back, just as awkward as Dean’s had been. 

“Oh,” Dean says, and Cas works quite hard not to read anything in the tone of that syllable. “Yeah, you too. See you around, Castiel.” 

And with that, Cas retreats back to his house. 

~~~

Once inside, Cas skulks just to the side of the upstairs front window, where he’s pretty sure he can’t be seen from the outside due to the play of the light and the very thin curtain. He watches, like the creep he is, as Dean rakes the remarkable quantity of leaves that have collected on the lawn of the Braeden house. He has a whole system, with an old fashioned rake and a tarp, like he’s been doing this for so long he has it down to a science. He probably has been, come to think of it. That kid the other night looked about the right age to have been born just a couple years after they all graduated. Maybe the Braedens passed on the house to the next generation when Lisa had her kid, and this has been Dean’s domain ever since. It’s not like Gabe would know – he was rarely awake when at home even before the pandemic sucked up all his free time, and being nosy about the neighbors doesn’t interest him nearly as much as hospital gossip. 

Dean rakes the whole lawn in the space of about 20 minutes. Castiel watches from across the street. And a couple of times, when Dean takes a second to roll out his shoulders, he looks off into the distance across the street. At which point Castiel’s wishful subconscious imagines that he’s looking at the house across the street, specifically. It’s a nice lie, anyway. 

Just as Dean’s dumping the second to last tarp-full of leaves into the street for tomorrow’s pickup, a little blue car pulls into the driveway. To no one’s surprise, out steps Lisa Braeden, still statuesque as ever, followed by the same small boy from the other night. Dean pauses with the tarp in one hand, and salutes the little boy. The boy salutes back as he and his mother head in the front door of the lovely little house. The whole scene is sickeningly adorable. 

Ever a martyr at heart, Castiel continues to watch as Dean finishes with his task. With one last glance across the street (most likely a figment of Cas’s imagination, honestly), he rolls up his tarp and picks up his rake, and heads up the driveway, around to the back of the house. 

Castiel watches for longer than he would like to admit, but none of them emerge. 

~~~

Castiel doesn’t let himself stare at Dean’s house much over the ensuing week. He’s trying to get into at least some kind of domestic routine, if only as a balm to his mental health, so he spends as much time as possible just reading or writing or brushing Bela (when she will allow such intrusions). He does go out to walk the neighborhood occasionally, but sticks to his side of the street as he comes and goes, and Dean is not on the lawn at any of these times. 

Once, about six days after the incident with the rake, Castiel is making his way up the block at dusk when he is passed by a rather familiar black car. It slows down slightly as it passes him, heading up toward the tiny shopping district a few blocks away, and through the rolled down window he hears, “Heya, Cas!”

With a squint, he confirms Dean is driving the car, and he has just enough time to offer a wave in response before Dean is forced to speed back up to avoid impeding traffic. Castiel watches the car turn the corner before continuing down the block. 

His subconscious will never allow him to forget just how irrationally pleased he was to note that there were no passengers in the car with Dean. 

~~~

It’s nearly 8:00 on a Thursday night when the doorbell rings. And thank goodness Gabe isn’t here trying to sleep, because he would be livid. Castiel can just imagine the shouts of “who rings doorbells these days?!” that would flow from his brother’s mouth as he stomped across the house to the front door. 

Castiel, being without malice for mysterious evening callers, even of the unexpected variety, does not stomp as he heads down to open the door. He doesn’t make an effort to look any less schlubby and disheveled, either, but at least he doesn’t yell. 

What he does not expect is to find Dean Winchester standing just on the other side of the storm door. 

“Hello.” It’s the only word he can get out. He’s baffled. And possibly going into his version of fight or flight mode (attempting to melt into the floor beneath him in order to avoid both fight and flight). 

“Hey Castiel. Uh, this is going to sound unbelievably cliché, but,” he hesitates for a second, rubbing the back of his neck as he looks apologetically at Cas. “Could I, uh… borrow some sugar?”

Cas feels his head tilt, his usual confusion response winning out over the vague dread that had been forming in his gut. 

“I know it’s a weird…this shit only happens in sitcoms, right? That’s what I thought, but,” he hooks his thumb back toward his own house. “Lisa’s making cookies, and she honest to god ran out of sugar halfway through the recipe. And the grocery stores all get mobbed in the evenings, these days, you know? So, I figured since you’re here and I sorta know you, I should see if maybe you could help out so nobody has to risk a store full of strangers.”

And, oh, Cas was not prepared for the gut punch that would come with hearing Dean say Lisa’s name. Huh. 

“If you have sugar to spare, that is,” Dean adds, faltering slightly. 

Right, Cas should probably respond or something, shouldn’t he?

He holds up a finger before muttering, “Just a moment”, and scuttling back to the kitchen. Apparently he should have made the effort to look less schlubby after all, he thinks, as he starts going through the cupboards in search of sugar. Then again, it clearly doesn’t matter how Cas looks in this moment, given the domestic bliss that reigns in the house across the street. He could be half naked, ripped, and covered in oil right now, and it wouldn’t change a thing about this situation. 

Gabe, being an avid baker when he isn’t working seven days a week, has many kinds of sugar. Hoping to get this interaction over with as soon as humanly possible so that he can spend the rest of his evening wallowing in shame and embarrassment, Castiel brings all the sugars. 

Then he puts them all down again so he can put on his mask before returning to the door with his haul. 

“I wasn’t sure which kind of sugar you needed,” Castiel offers apologetically as he shows off each of the labelled plastic containers in turn. 

“Wow, thanks, man,” Dean returns, eyebrows raised but tone impressed. At least he isn’t openly teasing Cas for his general dork-like behaviors. Gabe would be six jokes deep by this point. In the end, he points at the plain old white granulated sugar. “Just this one is perfect.”

Realizing that he won’t be able to open the storm door with his arms full of sugar containers, Castiel turns to the side and stacks the unwanted varieties on the tiny end table next to the door, where Gabriel’s keys and wallet usually live. Dean might be laughing at him silently, as he juggles baking ingredients in his brother’s doorway, but it’s impossible to tell through the mask. That’s a small mercy. Castiel chooses to tell himself the gorgeous man is merely grinning. 

“Seriously, man,” Dean continues as Cas hands over his sugar selection. “Thank you for this. You’re a life saver. Perhaps literally, given how wild the grocery stores get.” 

Castiel closes the storm door again once his hands are free of baking supplies. Ever the scintillating conversationalist, he replies, “no problem.” 

With a tiny pause, Dean nods at this unreal comment, and starts to turn. “Well, I’ll get this over to Lisa so you can have the rest back ASAP.”

“There’s no real rush,” Castiel interjects, finally finding a full sentence to contribute to this exchange. “It’s Gabe’s, and he won’t be using it any time soon.”

Mid turn, Dean halts, listens, and nods. “Okay. But still. I appreciate this. And I owe you one.”

Castiel is ready to assure Dean that he very much does not owe him anything, but at the pointed finger and focused look in the man’s eye, the words die in his mouth. He just waves feebly back, and watches as his neighbor heads back across the street. 

~~~

In the morning, Castiel returns from his walk to find several things on the front stoop: the slightly depleted container of sugar, a small plastic container full of chocolate chip cookies, and a scrap of paper with the words, “Thanks again! I owe you one – Dean” neatly printed in blue sharpie. 

The damn cookies are delicious, though Castiel would enjoy them infinitely more if they hadn’t apparently been made by his crush’s wife/girlfriend. 

His resentment does not, however, stop him from eating them all. 

~~~

The next day things get… strange. 

Really, if Castiel wasn’t such a creep, he would have missed it entirely. But the sequence of events (as spotted out the upstairs front window while Castiel was half paying attention to his laptop) goes like this:

  1. Lisa comes out the front door to get the paper, which had been dropped in the middle of the front lawn by the paper delivery person
  2. Dean’s huge black car backs down the driveway from behind the house
  3. Lisa, still on the lawn, waves goodbye to Dean with a pleasant smile on her lovely face, and Dean waves right back as he heads up the street toward the shops
  4. Lisa returns to the house
  5. Ten minutes go by without incident
  6. A man emerges from the house to the right of the Braedens’. He is tall, striking, handsome, etc., walking down his front walk like he hasn’t a care in the world
  7. The man approaches the Braedens’ front door and knocks
  8. Lisa opens the door, smiles widely, kisses the man on the lips for several minutes, then welcomes him into the house



Meanwhile, across the street, Castiel simply stares in dawning horror as his neighbor welcomes her apparent lover into her home in a very public manner.

What the actual fuck?

~~~

Castiel spent the rest of the day very nervous. It was irrational – there wasn’t any reason to believe he would talk to Dean Winchester again at all, so the fact that he is now in possession of a bombshell is irrelevant. Right? 

Still, it’s not a fun bit of gossip to know, in Cas’ opinion. Gabriel would love it, but Gabriel doesn’t know any of the people involved. Cas sort of does and really doesn’t enjoy knowing that one member of the group is openly flaunting an affair for the whole neighborhood to potentially see. It’s baffling, and a bit disconcerting given the looming concerns the virus poses when one is kissing a person who does not live in their own home. It’s all just… a lot. 

But it gets way weirder in the evening. 

Castiel had finally decided to go for a walk a bit before dusk, and he’s approaching home on his side of the street when he notices movement at the Braedens’ again. Lisa is coming down the front walk with a small duffle in one hand, and a bottle of wine in the other. She looks real sharp, like maybe she dressed up a bit, and as she turns on to the sidewalk Cas can hear her call, “Have fun, you two,” back toward the house. 

From their seat on the front steps, Dean and the same young boy from the other night wave at Lisa before turning their attention back to the tablet screen in Dean’s hand. Both of them are masked. 

With a shake of her head, Lisa continues on her way along the sidewalk. She turns up the drive of the next house over. She knocks. She’s greeted at the door by the same tall man Castiel spotted her with this morning, who leans out his front door to call a greeting of his own to Dean and the boy. They wave back again, apparently unconcerned and unsurprised as Lisa kisses their neighbor lightly on the mouth, hands him the bottle of wine, and follows him into his home. The door closes behind them. 

Castiel, walking (now rather slowly) down the street, is very confused. 

He doesn’t have long to stew in his bewilderment, however, before Dean spots him. 

“Heya, Cas,” he calls, when Castiel’s fevered wishes to disappear into the hedge next door go unanswered. 

With no way out, he turns and calls back, “Hello Dean,” in his best impersonation of the voice of someone who didn’t just witness something very complex and unanticipated.

Handing the tablet off to the kid, Dean jogs down to the curb, apparently determined to chat with Castiel from across the street. “Whatcha up to?”

Cas gestures vaguely back the way he came. “Just coming back from a walk,” he explains, feeling supremely weird about the statement as it leaves his mouth. 

Dean doesn’t seem creeped out, though. He just nods and says, “nice night for it.” He’s right, too. It’s unseasonably warm, and even with the sun creeping down past the houses, it’s truly a beautiful evening. “Listen,” Dean continues. “Are you doing anything tonight?”

“I…” and, wow, that is not a question Cas has been asked in months. Even without the added Lisa confusion, Castiel suspects he wouldn’t be sputtering any less than he is right now. “Um, no, not really. Reading, I suppose.”

It’s a near thing, but he manages to stifle the baffled, “why on Earth do you ask” that wants to tack itself on to the end of his answer. Not to mention the incredulous, “and what is the deal with your confusing love life” that’s been bubbling up for the last three minutes or so. 

Thanks to Castiel’s restraint, Dean makes an unexpected offer. “You wanna come watch a movie? Me and Ben here are gonna do a socially distant watch in the backyard and get takeout.” He’s indicating the kid, who has followed Dean down toward the curb to join the conversation. “We were thinkin’ burgers and _Empire Strikes Back_ , if that sounds good to you.”

Cas looks at the kid, expecting to be met with annoyance. This boy has never met Castiel, after all. But he seems to be smiling, as best can be surmised through his Bat Signal branded face mask. Still, Cas hedges. 

“I don’t want to intrude.”

“You’re not,” says the boy – Ben. “We’re inviting you.” 

Kid has a point, there. Fuck it. “Okay, if you’re sure. That sounds lovely.”

“Awesome,” Dean declares. “We were just about to put in the food order. You know what you want from The Roadhouse?”

“I’m not actually familiar with that establishment,” Cas confesses, causing Dean to raise his eyebrows in surprise. “But if they offer a bacon cheeseburger of some kind, I’ll have one of those.”

“Oh, do they ever,” Dean replies, sounding extremely excited. “You haven’t had a bacon cheeseburger ‘til you’ve had one of Ellen’s.”

“Anything to drink?” Ben is tapping around on the tablet, apparently adding Cas’ burger to their order. “A pop or something?”

“I’ve got beer here, too, if you’d rather,” Dean adds. 

Cas contemplates his options, then asks, “Do they make milkshakes at this roadhouse?”

“Hell yeah,” Ben adds enthusiastically. 

“Hey,” Dean barks at the kid. 

Ben rolls his eyes. “Fine, heck yeah. Happy?”

“Very,” Dean adds with an amused nod.

“I’d love a chocolate milkshake, then,” Cas interjects, also amused. 

“Excellent choice,” Ben replies, tapping on the tablet again. 

“Beautiful,” Dean pronounces, clapping his hands together. “I just need a couple minutes to finish setting up the projector, but come on back.”

“I’ll be right there,” Cas says, turning toward his own house. “Let me just run inside for a moment.”

Dean nods. “Sounds good. Just head up the driveway when you’re ready.”

And with that, they part ways.

Cas creeps into the house, careful not to wake Gabriel, and tiptoes up to his own room to feed Bela. And, well. The least he can do is change out of this gross, sweaty t-shirt he’s been wearing for two days, right?

~~~

The backyard of the Braedens’ house is huge. At least, it’s way bigger than Castiel had imagined it would be. Even the garage is enormous, weirdly tall and still wide enough for several cars. It has windows – what kind of garage has windows like that? Is it masquerading as a small house?

Okay, yeah, Cas is a little nervous, but he’s trying not to be ridiculous about it. 

Dean has set up three chairs, all facing the side wall of the garage, where a projector is taking advantage of the large blank canvas it provides. Cas is motioned over toward one of the chairs, where he settles in as Dean starts the movie. 

On the basic level, it’s a fun and comfortable feeling in the yard. They chat amiably through the opening credits. Then they watch the movie, which all three of them have clearly seen before. Dean appears to have it largely memorized, and Ben gently ribs him about his love for the franchise throughout. They have a playful relationship, but they make every effort to include Cas in their banter, which he appreciates. 

There are some details of the evening that Castiel finds rather confusing, though. For one, the chairs in which they sit are all spaced six feet or so apart – all three of them, evenly spaced in a large triangle. He can’t figure out why Dean and Ben would need to be separated like that, given that they live together. Perhaps Dean wanted to make sure Cas didn’t feel left out, spatially? Or maybe there’s something else at play here and Castiel should stop assuming things. Probably the latter, honestly. 

Of course, there’s also the way that everyone is in a good mood even though Lisa seems to be on a date with the man next door. Dean alternately calls her by her first name or “your mother” depending on whether he’s speaking to Cas or Ben, but neither is pronounced with any sort of animosity or hurt. Castiel doesn’t have the bandwidth to contemplate that part of the situation while also being a good guest and seeming like a functioning human, so he just files his bafflement away for future study. 

And then there’s the arrival of the food. The delivery person comes right to the back yard, for some reason, rather than going to the front door, and is greeted by name by both Ben and Dean. Aaron, who looks to be a little younger than Dean and Castiel, is cordial with them in the way of old friends, and even makes vaguely playful (or perhaps flirty?) conversation with Cas once they’ve been introduced. But before he can untangle that reality, the food has been dispersed, and Aaron is gone. 

As they open up their food containers to dig in, Ben turns to Dean. “Well, you two seem to be on good terms again,” he says, giving the man a knowing and vaguely probing look. 

Dean glares at the kid, though with barely any heat behind it. “What’s your point?”

“No point,” Ben replies, raising his hands in mock surrender. “Just making an observation. It’s good to see.”

Dean just shakes his head and says, “Eat your dinner.” He might actually be blushing, but that could be a trick of the fading light. 

Ben rolls his eyes. “Yeah, okay. Hit play so we can get back to your one true love, Han Solo.”

Miraculously, Dean doesn’t respond to this at all, except to take a big bite of his burger and start the movie back up. Very uncertain, Cas decides to write all of this off rather than thinking about it too hard. Perhaps Dean is just secure in his heterosexuality in such a way that he doesn’t mind a child implying he has a crush on a very masculine character. That is the only possibility Cas will entertain right now because he is not supposed to be thinking about it too hard. 

The food is, as promised, exceptional. Castiel thinks he can be forgiven for moaning over his first bite of the burger, even if it elicits surprised looks from both of his companions. His declaration that the burger makes him “very happy” seems to appease them both, though, and it even elicits a triumphant smile from Dean, so that seems like a win. 

The evening progresses in much the same way, right on through the end of the movie. Then things get confusing again. 

“Hey, so,” Ben begins, looking at the small cell phone in his hand. “Andy wants me to jump into Fortnite. That okay?” 

Dean glances at his watch. “Sure. You’ve got an hour before bed, though, so that’s all you get.”

Ben jumps up. “Sweet. Thanks, Dean.”

“But remember, I can see your bedroom light from here. Lights out is in an hour and ten. And I’ll know if you cheat – that blue light travels.”

“Got it. I’ll set an alarm,” Ben promises, gathering up his chair and the remains of his dinner. “It was nice to meet you, Castiel,” he adds, smiling over his shoulder as he heads up toward the house. 

“It was nice to meet you too,” Cas replies, waving slightly.

Still snug in his chair, Dean calls, “Don’t forget to lock the doors.” He gets a thumbs up in return. 

On the one hand, there are probably explanations for all of this that make perfect sense. But, at least to Castiel, it all just feels…peculiar. True, he doesn’t have kids, and hasn’t been around people who do in a long time. But this whole exchange just doesn’t feel like a father and son. It feels like friends with mismatched ages, maybe. Or an older and younger brother. Cas’ confusion is back with a vengeance, and there’s no longer a Star War to distract him. 

Plus, now he’s alone with Dean, and he’s not sure what to do.

“So,” Dean begins, turning toward Cas in his chair and removing the necessity for his guest to make a decision. “It’s been a very long time. How’s life?”

“Um,” Cas shakes himself, realizing that he has now put himself in exactly the position he drove home wanting to avoid: he now needs to tell his high school crush about the dumpster fire that is his life. “Well,” he begins, deciding humor is his best defense, “I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but there’s a pandemic going on.”

That gets him a deep, honest laugh. Success. 

“You know, that explains a lot,” Dean replies, playing along. “I was wondering why there were so few people at the hardware store this morning.”

Castiel smiles, and decides to just get the awkwardness over and done. “Life’s not precisely ideal,” he admits, looking down at his hands as his smile turns sad. “I’m out of a job, so I’m out of a house, living in my brother’s spare room while he spends all his time at the hospital or sleeping.”

Alarmed, Dean asks, “At the hospital?”

“He works there,” Cas assures him, realizing that Gabe has probably made no effort to even introduce himself to the neighbors. “Emergency room. It’s…not great right now.”

“I bet,” Dean sympathizes. 

Cas just nods. None of this is really company conversation, but such are the times. “He’s been great, though. Just told me to move in as soon as I got laid off, to save myself the rent money and ride all this out.”

“Sounds like a good brother.”

“Most of the time,” Cas admits, raising an eyebrow. 

Dean laughs again. “Well, brothers will be brothers.”

“How’s yours, by the way,” Cas asks, remembering the younger boy who had run around with them now and again when they were young. “Sam, right?”

“Yeah,” Dean answers. “He’s good. He’s out in California. He’s in Labor Law, so. You know. Plenty to do right about now.” 

Cas winces. “I can’t decide if that’s an upside or a downside for him.”

“Neither can he,” Dean admits with a grim exhaling laugh. “But he’s always been headed for a nice settled life with a good fight for him to focus on, so he’s in the right spot.” 

Something about the tone made that feel like something of a confession. It makes Castiel tilt his head inquisitively. “You say that like it’s a contrast. Is a ‘nice settled life’ not something you’ve always wanted?”

Dean blows out an eloquent breath. “Hell, no. I hit the road about eight years ago and didn’t stop moving til my Dad died last summer.”

Cas blinks. “Oh,” he ejects, ever a wordsmith. That…was not what he was expecting to hear. “I’m sorry. For your loss, I mean.”

“Thanks,” Dean grunts. He sounds almost guilty, though. “He was complicated. We were complicated. All of us. He drove Sam up the wall until he was ready to skedaddle the minute he could. So, Sam got into college as far away as he possibly could, and Dad basically told me not to come back from dropping him off at his dorm.”

“How did you end up back here?” Castiel can’t help but ask it. He’s very lost regarding the timeline of all this. 

“Came back for his funeral,” he offers with a dark chuckle. “Ran into Lisa at the Roadhouse that night, a couple drinks in. She talked me out of bolting again, starting over in yet another town someplace. Offered to let me stay here.” He gestures at the garage. 

Castiel just blinks at him, very confused. Dean stares back, perplexed in his own right, apparently by this reaction. After a drawn out moment, he clarifies. 

“That’s where I live.” 

Cas squints. “In the garage?”

After a tiny pause, Dean bursts out laughing. “Shit, sorry. No. It’s got an apartment up on top. Like a Mother-in-Law Suite, but not so fancy. I live up there.” Finally at least following the logic of the conversation, Castiel leans his head back and joins in with Dean’s laughter. When they both finally manage to calm back down to light chuckles, Dean asks, “Did you think I just hang around here all the time doing lawn work?!”

“I…no, I thought you lived…” He feels supremely silly, and now he feels like he’s treading in even weirder territory than he was five minutes ago. Because Dean does not live with Lisa, apparently, and therefore Cas has no clue what is happening with that whole situation. He just trails off awkwardly, until Dean picks up on what he was getting at. 

“Ahh, yeah, no,” he says, mercifully sounding amused rather than upset. “This is still Lisa’s Mom’s house. She and Ben moved back in a year and a half ago, to help out – Cheryl’s got a pretty aggressive autoimmune disease, and even before the pandemic she needed a hand with a lot of stuff. But no one was using the apartment out here, so Lis offered it to me cheap if I wanted to stick around. My Uncle Bobby talked me into taking the offer, and here we all are. A happy family with a weird mechanic living over the garage.”

Pushing his luck but too curious to stop, Cas asks, “Is Ben your son? I know you and Lisa dated back in high school, but I sort of missed everything after graduation.”

“No, no. Lis and I broke up after prom,” he admits, grinning wistfully. “We were sorta just friends by that point, and she was gonna go to college. Ben came from that next chapter of her life.”

Castiel nods, shuffling pieces of this strange reality in his mind. “He seems like a good kid.”

“Definitely.” And Castiel feels a little vindicated about his assumptions given the proud parent twist to Dean’s mouth when he pronounces the word. They’re obviously close, even if they’re not related, either biologically or familially. “He’s been great through all the chaos of the last few months, too. Hell, I can’t go in the house to make him go to bed on time tonight, but I’d place bets he’ll still be in there with the lights off ready to sleep exactly when I told him to. What kid does that?”

“You can’t go in the house?” And the bafflement is back, mostly because Cas has, yet again, been caught off guard. 

“Cheryl – er, Lisa’s mom. She’s super immunocompromised. So I keep my distance from Lis and Ben, and just drop stuff off on the back porch for them sometimes if I’ve been at the store. Hence the socially distant babysitting routine tonight.”

“Ahh,” Castiel acknowledges. “And Lisa is hanging out next door?”

“Yep. Matt got an alert about a potential exposure, so he quarantined for the last two weeks, and his tests all came back negative today. So, they’re celebrating as most couples do.” He’s got an amused smile on his face. He really is genuinely happy for them, as best Cas can tell. “Did we scandalize you earlier, with her going next door to her lover?” 

Caught, Cas just surrenders his last vestige of dignity with a grimace. “Certainly caught me off guard. Not that I have a problem with whatever romantic arrangements people might have with each other. But it’s not something one expects to see out in the open in broad daylight in suburbia.”

“One does not, no,” Dean agrees, immensely amused. “But, then, one doesn’t expect to see a lot of things around here that turn out to be very true.”

Castiel takes a long time to decide if he’s going to respond to this, push the cryptic statement a bit to see if it was meant to elicit his curiosity as it so thoroughly has. But, then, he’s embarrassed himself in front of this man several times tonight and that really just resulted in them laughing together. Fuck it. It’s been a shitty year – how much worse could a little push make it?

“Do you have something specific in mind? Or do you just mean that generally?”

Dean looks at him. Scratch that – he gazes. He searches Castiel’s face for something. He makes a decent attempt at peering into Castiel’s soul. And Castiel just lets him, happy to let those beautiful eyes have their way with his own. 

“Well,” Dean finally says, looking away, but seeming to very casually keep Cas in his periphery. “I certainly didn’t expect to see you back around here.” There’s a breath’s pause – the sort that takes physical shape. The sort that is really a precipice. Dean barrels on, with only the tiniest tension trapped in his muscles, poised to spring back up the hill if he must. “And I certainly didn’t expect you to be about 50 times hotter. That was definitely a surprise.”

It hangs there, a little balloon of wonder, filling Castiel with an awe that knows no bounds, lifting him up by the heart strings and tempting him to float away on the evening breeze. Here sits Dean Winchester, unattached and braced to flee, flirting with him. This is definitively not something Castiel would have predicted from the hellscape that is the year 2020. 

Though, if he continues to leave Dean hanging, the night might turn back into reality far too soon. 

“You’re one to talk about surprises,” he finally says, trying desperately to keep his voice relatively even. “Imagine my surprise to find out my high school crush who lives across the street is not only the sexiest man alive, but also miraculously is not married to his gorgeous landlady. Wonders have just been piling up on my doorstep for a while now.”

Dean’s back to gazing, but Cas doesn’t flinch. “I didn’t even know you remembered me when you came back senior year.”

“I could say the same to you,” Castiel counters, setting this additional astonishment aside for the time being. There were more pressing matters. “I could also say I very much assumed you were interested only in women.”

“Common misconception,” Dean allows. “But you assumed wrong on that one, too. In fact, you met my most recent ex earlier tonight.”

“Aaron?” Castiel guesses, Ben’s reaction to the delivery man suddenly coming into a new kind of focus. 

Dean just nods. “Not a great match, all in all. But he’s a good guy. It was fun for a bit before the lockdowns started up.” After a moment, he adds, “He didn’t like Star Wars, though, so it never woulda worked out.”

“Glad to know I passed that test, then,” Castiel replies, positively giddy at this point. 

“Damn right,” Dean agrees. “Han Solo is the shit.” Then he stands and stretches his back. When he turns back to Castiel, his gaze has a whole new heat behind it. “You want a beer?”

No need to ask Cas twice. “Sure.”

The grin Dean gives him before he heads toward the garage is sinful, and Castiel is very much here for seeing that expression as often as humanly possible. 

So Dean goes up to his apartment, and Castiel sits there, out in the beautiful air. And this night probably can’t end the way he wants it to – it definitely shouldn’t, given the state of the world and the dangers of forgetting about safety. But perhaps they will quarantine, with a goal in mind and a time frame to stick to. Perhaps they will become some kind of pod or even move in together. Who knows.

Maybe it won’t go anywhere. But Castiel is exceptionally happy he ran into Dean Winchester, after all. And for the first time in a very long time, he has a good feeling about something to come. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> FYI I almost called this story "Babe I'm Gonna Leaf You" because the world is melting and the finale was weird and I'm sitting in suburbia spending way too much time swimming in my dad's sense of humor. You are very welcome for my restraint.


End file.
